to feel for the first time
by lord-is-it-mine
Summary: 5 plus 1. prompt: "firsts". five firsts bucky got, and one he never thought he'd have. title from "First Time" by Lifehouse.


_**i.**_

Bucky is seven years old the first time he pulls Steve out of a fight.

The three toughest boys in the third grade- two years ahead of tiny little Steve Rogers- steal some second grader's baseball and hold it above his head, yelling cruel taunts while the poor kid tries to take it back- and gets a mouthful of schoolyard dirt for his trouble. From what Bucky can figure, Steve had happened upon the incident, and, instead of running straight to the teacher (as any _logical_ six-year-old would have), he lowered his head and barreled right into the bully who had the stolen baseball. The kid hadn't seen it coming, and was knocked off his feet, until he realised the size (or lack thereof) of the boy who had jumped him. After that, Steve was the one on the ground.

Bucky happens upon the scene quite coincidentally, it would seem (though to this day, the more romantic side of him swears up and down that fate must have had something to do with it). He hears Steve yelling (even as he was being repeatedly shoved to the ground and hit about the head with a baseball glove). When he gets closer, Bucky can only catch a glimpse or two of Steve's tiny body through the group that has surrounded the scrap- some are encouraging the fight- some remain silent. Not a single one even attempts to stop it from happening.

Bucky sees Steve get to his feet again, smoothing his dust-covered hair back, steeling his shoulders and flashing a cocky smirk- even then he was a master of that stupid smirk. A light of reckless determination flashes in his bright blue eyes- and right then and there, some part of Bucky knows that he'll be pulling this kid out of scrapes like this for the rest of his natural life.

 _ **ii.**_

Bucky is eight the first time he has to stop the bleeding.

It's yet another scrape with kids a year or two older. Steve still has no idea how to choose his battles- although, what kid their age does?

This time, the older kids in question are bothering a girl on the walk home from school- pulling her pigtails and coming way to close to actually touching her. She's fighting back tears, trying to break away and make a run for it- but the four boys are on all sides of her- they obviously had this planned out pretty well.

Steve has dropped his books and sprinted for the biggest kid before Bucky even registers the loss of Steve from his side. When he realises what's happening (again), he sets his books down, swears under his breath and takes off after his firecracker best friend.

Second graders, he has figured out, are easier to deal with. They haven't quite learned the trick of the right hook like fourth graders have.

Sufficed to say, the girl gets home safe, but only because Steve turned all of the older boys' malice and violence on himself. Not three minutes after he stepped in, he's flat on his back, seeing stars and bleeding freely from the nose while the older boys walk away laughing.

"God _damn it_ Stevie." Bucky grouses, helping Steve sit up so the damage can be assessed. "How many more times're you gonna put me through this, huh?" He rolls down his sleeve, dabbing at Steve's upper lip- his lower one's gone fat, and there'll be one hell of a bruise on his cheekbone by morning. _Mrs. Rogers ain't gonna be happy,_ he thinks.

"However many more times guys like that think they can treat people with no respect." Steve mumbles, voice stuffy when Bucky pinches at the bridge of his nose. "You don't have'ta do this for me, Buck."

"No, I don't." Bucky agrees. "I have to do it for the sanity of your poor ma." _And for me. I can't watch you get hurt like this- not if I can make it better._

"Thanks, Buck." Steve says, after his nose looks (slightly) less broken and Bucky's sleeves are probably ruined for good.

"Anytime, punk." Bucky says, ruffling Steve's hair. Steve protests and swats his hand away.

" _Jerk._ " He growls playfully, not knowing how well the name is going to stick.

 _ **iii.**_

Bucky is sixteen the first time he looks at Steve and thinks _I love him_.

It comes at the most unexpected time, in the most unexpected of ways; it's not some big 'eureka' moment. There's no clashing of cymbals and opening of the heavens.

It's the end of July. There's a buzz in the air; city traffic a few streets away, cicadas hidden somewhere, and the electric fan spinning away in the corner. A warm breeze comes through the windows, the shadows of the alley laundry lines dancing across the walls. Even as the sun goes down, sweat is pasting Bucky's clothes to his skin, and he saw a dark stain of the same nature on Steve's shirt between his shoulder blades when he came in.

Bucky glares at the fan. A whole lotta good that thing's doing. It's still hotter than Satan's asshole in here.

"Jesus. _That's_ a nice image, _jerk_." Steve, half asleep and lying spread eagle on Bucky's living room floor. Bucky hadn't realised he'd said it out loud.

" _You're_ the one who _thought_ about it, _punk_." He rolls his eyes, pretending not to stare as Steve wrestles with the buttons on his own shirt. By the time he's naked to the waist, Bucky has pulled the couch cushions down around them. He lays down next to Steve, who's grabbed a newspaper from the coffee table and has begun to fan himself with it.

"That's just gonna make you hotter, you know." Bucky mumbles, feeling his eyelids go heavy. It's not that late- barely eight o'clock. But the long, hot day is really weighing on both of them, and Steve is clearly giddy with exhaustion.

"Aw, Buck, you think I'm _hot_?"

"Yeah, Steve. You're a real knockout." Bucky, murmurs, eyes fixated on the way Steve's eyes flutter closed; delicate, beautiful, like butterfly wings or falling snowflakes or some sappy shit like that. Bucky's a goner. Steve yawns deeply and tosses the paper away, curling in on his side next to Bucky, close enough to touch, but still so far away.

"G'night, Buck." He yawns, drifting off almost instantly.

"Sweet dreams, Stevie." Bucky whispers, following like he always does.

He wakes up in the early hours of the morning to a white roar outside the window. He starts, sitting halfway up in a daze, but realises it's only rain. He can't see much in the dark, but what little light there is makes everything black and grey. The whole world seems foggy at the edges, but the contrast between light and dark is still sharp as ever. The far corners of the room are cloaked in shadow- he shivers when the air from the fan hits him. He can't see it, but it's still buzzing, adding to the noise of rain. It all just sounds like radio static.

Bucky rubs the sleep out of his eyes, lying back down on his back and trying to see the cracks in the ceiling. It strains his eyes. He turns on his side, hip and neck aching from sleeping on the floor, and only then does he completely remember exactly where he is. When he sees Steve lying next to him, he feels warmth cascade from his chest and through his whole body. A smile dawns on his face, and he commits every detail of this rare sight to memory.

Steve is in the same position he fell asleep in, knees pulled up to his chest, hands pillowed beneath his head. His face is the definition of peaceful, eyes softly closed, lips in an almost smile, as if he's dreaming about home- the kind everyone strives for all their lives.

 _I love him_ , Bucky thinks. _I'll burn for it one way or another, but I love him_.

The thought blooms inside him, attaches itself to the base of his heart and tethers him to Steve's side. He tries to remember a time when he didn't feel like this. He can't. That's it. This feeling isn't new. But the admission to himself in the simplest of terms- _that's_ new. And it hasn't hit him yet, just how difficult it's going to be, to love someone you can never have, because he has Steve for now, at least in every way he's _allowed_ to have him.

He has to believe that it'll be enough.

 _ **iv.**_

Bucky is eighteen (and totally boozed) the first time he kisses Steve.

Bucky, for the record, is a complete and utter coward, and so he has to get completely and utterly drunk before he can ever _begin_ to entertain the notion of finally discovering what Steve Rogers' pretty mouth actually tastes like. He's imagined every flavour under the sun, in the years he's been wanting to find out- tonight though, he knows it's probably cheap whiskey and a whole lot of laughter.

"Fuck. I am soooo _drunk_." Steve says. It's not even meant to be the least bit funny- Bucky laughs anyway, whether out of inebriated hilarity or a sudden onset of nerves, he doesn't know. He does know that he'll hate himself tomorrow, whether he kisses Steve or not.

"So am I." He replies, sinking farther into the couch- his parents are gone tonight, thank God- otherwise he wouldn't have the chance to get this sloshed. He wouldn't do it on his own anyway- Steve's the only one who can get him to really drink, despite how much Bucky tries to get him out on the town. Steve doesn't seem interested in the company of anyone other than Bucky. Bucky's not sober enough to deny what he thinks that must mean.

"Buck. Bucky. Buck _eeeee_." Steve whines. Bucky realises he's been staring unabashedly at Steve's mouth, thinking of all the _sounds_ he wants to try and get out of it. His name is one of them, so that's a start. But he needs it to be more breathless, a moan really, something like a desperate gust of wind making the window frames groan.

"Steve. Stevie. _Steeeeeeve_." He mocks, reluctantly pulling his eyes off of Steve's lips. Steve pouts, of course, and Bucky's eyes go right back.

"I've never kissed a dame, Buck." Steve says, and oddly, he says it like it _isn't_ the biggest tragedy ever to befall a living, breathing human being.

"Y'Don't sound too broken up about it though, do ya?" Bucky finds the bottle on the coffee table, taking a long swig so as to avoid saying something his right mind isn't around to stop him from saying.

"Oh, I'm not." Steve shrugs lazily. "Not. At. _All_."

"Then why're you bringin' it up?" Bucky frowns. _Let's not talk about kissing dames_ , he thinks. _Let's talk about kissing each other. Let's skip the talking and just kiss each other already_.

"I'm just tryin'a figure it out." Steve sits up, wobbling a bit, before planting a hand on Bucky's knee to steady himself. His hand is really warm. So is Bucky's face.

"I mean, I like girls, just fine, sure." Steve explains, and Bucky realises that his expression must read confused. "I've seen a couple real beautiful girls, I mean, _real_ kissable." Steve looks Bucky in the eye, leans in, really close, like they're going to be overheard. Bucky doesn't want to remind him that there's no one in the room. This is the closest their mouths have ever been to touching. Bucky wants to get closer.

"I get that those girls may not wanna kiss _me_ , but I wanna kiss _them_ , and that's normal, right? But the thing is," Steve sways, "I kinda wanna-"

And Bucky shuts him up. Steve's mouth is already half-open; the kiss is sloppy and drunken and maybe not the best from a technical standpoint, but it's miles ahead of any kiss Bucky's ever had. He knows it's Steve's first, and therefore, if he makes sure that Steve never kisses anyone else ever again, Steve will never have anything to compare it to.

 _I'm such a selfish prick_. But Steve is pulling his hair and sucking on his bottom lip and Bucky can't think of where in hell Steve could have learned all this, unless-

"Steve, was that your first kiss?" He asks the obvious, words heavy against Steve's mouth, praying to the baby Jesus himself that Steve says yes.

"Yuh-huh." Steve laughs, just brushing his lips to Bucky's, clearly itching to do it again.

"And this'll be my second."

Bucky flinches away just before Steve's mouth covers his.

"Steve-" his shoulders slump at the completely wounded confusion present on Steve's face.

"What?" Steve swallows hard, and Bucky barely has enough resolve left to do the right thing.

"Steve, we're both three sheets to the wind right now; we _both_ know that's the _only_ reason this is happenin' at all." He gestures to the way the Steve has almost crawled into his lap. Steve goes tense and pulls back like he's been burned. A look of realisation dawns on his face, and it's as if he's gone from drunk to sober in a fraction of a second. He quickly rolls to the other end of the couch, two feet feeling like two miles to Bucky now that he knows the strength in Steve's hands and the heat of his mouth. _But it's what has to happen_ , he tells himself.

"I'm sorry." Steve says, pulling his knees up to his chest, visibly shaken and embarrassed. "I don't- I don't know what I was thinking."

"This isn't your fault, Stevie." Bucky insists. _God, this is a fucking mess_. "I shouldn'a let you drink so much. I'm the one who's s'posed to look out for you." He slurs. A long and silent minute passes, and the whole room feels like a graveyard.

"You should get some sleep." Bucky suggests, willing to do anything just so he doesn't have to keep looking at drunk dejected Steve anymore. "You can have my bed. I'll take the couch."

"No." Steve murmurs sleepily. "Don't wanna move."

"Fine." Bucky sighs, finally allowing himself to be exhausted and exasperated. He regrets this- all of it. Different parts for different reasons. But he wishes now that he could take back this whole damn night.

He goes to the kitchen and gets a glass of water for himself, then one for Steve. He puts Steve's glass down on the coffee table, pulling an old quilt off the armchair and draping it loosely over Steve's shoulders. Steve is pretending to be asleep; Bucky knows when Steve is pretending. That kiss was the farthest thing from pretending, and it scares the _shit_ out of him.

"Drink this. You'll be less hung-over in the morning." He orders, not waiting for Steve's reply before he goes to leave the room. He hits the light switch on his way out, pausing in the doorway.

"Night, punk." He whispers over his shoulder.

"Night, jerk." Steve whispers back, voice barely making a dent in the darkness between them. Bucky thinks that for the first time, Steve actually means it when he calls Bucky a jerk.

 _ **v.**_

Bucky is twenty-five the first time he says goodbye.

Thankfully, goodbyes don't last. They're only as long and drawn-out as you allow them to be. Bucky puts his arms around Steve, acutely aware of how surrounded they are by people who have no idea what it's like to be in love with someone who (can't) (doesn't) won't ever love you back. Bucky regrets dragging Steve out tonight. He wishes they had spent their last hours together back at home, in their apartment, where there would be no prying eyes or pressure, because Bucky is too tired to fight this anymore.

It's good that he's leaving, because all he's wanted to do since he got his orders was to lay Steve out on the rickety old bed that they've shared since they moved in together (and oh what a joy that's been). To get to lie next to Steve every night, achingly close to the fantasy of falling asleep in his arms and waking up the same way. Oh what a torture it's been, to have to lie next to Steve every night, achingly close to the fantasy of being above or beneath or wherever Steve wants him- to imagine holding white knuckled to the headboard while it bangs in a constant rhythm against the wall- to actually know what Steve's face looks like right before, during, and after he comes. He's been _this close_ this whole time, and he's managed to stay out of trouble, but he doesn't know how much longer he can handle it. So it's good that he's leaving.

His arms are around Steve and then they aren't. Like he's in Steve's life now and won't be tomorrow. Ebb and flow- _quick and painless_ , he tells himself.

"Be careful." Steve says, and it hits Bucky like a wave that stirs up all the silt of 'this isn't about me' and 'right, 'cause you got nothing to prove' and drags it back out to sea when Bucky steps back, into the shallows, soon to follow the current. He can't figure out if he's heading for his own future or Steve's past. He turns his back and means to find out.

"Don't win the war 'til I get there." Steve calls, his very voice an afterthought Bucky would much rather have avoided. He spins smoothly to face Steve one last time, like his shoes aren't full of stones and his heart isn't stuck to Steve's sleeve.

He salutes, and that's as long and drawn-out as he lets it get.

Ebb and flow.

Quick and painless.

 _ **\+ i.**_

Bucky is twenty-six the first time Steve actually saves _him_ for a change.

 _"I thought you were dead."_

 _"I thought you were smaller."_

And so it begins again.

Bucky very quickly realises that the sickly runt he left stateside remains now in name and face (and punk attitude) only. This body isn't _Steve's_. _This_ body can run, can climb, can jump- he can _breathe_ , and that's not even half of it- Steve can apparently see colours now, too- his eyes are sharp as anything- he can pick up movement from farther away than anyone else in their merry band of survivors can. Every other soldier here quickly decides that Steve's the guy you want next to you in a bad situation. Bucky knew that already (has known it all his life), but no one has bothered to ask him what he thinks of all this.

All Bucky can think now is that Steve could pick a fight with any Brooklyn thug he wanted and easily come out on top. It's one hell of a trip, looking at Steve _now_ after having known him so well _before_.

He can't imagine what kind of a trip this is for Steve.

All the way back to base, Bucky keeps forgetting that it's _Steve_ he's walking next to- having such a big physical presence beside him is foreign, to say the least- he nearly jumps out of his skin the first few times Steve's arm accidentally touches him. After that, he's constantly looking over to confirm that yes, that is Steve. He's not hallucinating.

He thinks about the things they did to him on that table and wonders if maybe he is out of his mind. So he looks at Steve again. Steve looks back. His nose is still a little crooked from every punch it ever took. His lips are how they've always been. In the months that he's been away, Bucky hasn't been able to picture Steve's mouth that well- his imagination can't do that mouth justice. He breathes a slight sigh of relief. Steve, as much as he looks like the drawings on the USO ads, is still perfectly real.

They march back into camp like the God damn Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade- a little less fanfare, maybe, but it still feels like that size of a celebration.

By the look on Steve's face when he sees (who will soon be known to Bucky as) Peggy Carter, and the look she gives him _back_ , Bucky gets his final confirmation that Steve really did pull him off that table- in all of his dreams, Bucky has only ever been in Steve's orbit- the moon, paling in comparison to the vibrancy of the Earth it looks over, maybe pulling the tides but having little effect on it in the grand scheme of things. To Bucky, Steve and Peggy look like the shore and the sea- always touching at the edges, feeding off of each other and giving life where it would be otherwise impossible to find. Bucky is just miles above in space, silent witness to the backside of the fireworks.

Sparks are flying, _that's_ for sure, and he only sees more of them as time goes by- they make their plan to take out HYRDA and go back to London and Peggy looks every inch at home in her red dress and matching lipstick. He hair is in curls that remind Bucky of every dame he's every danced with- and when he finds out Steve might have found the perfect dance partner, there comes a stab of jealously that hurts a thousand times more than anything Arnim Zola could ever do to him. He feels all kinds of righteous anger at himself when the guilt sets in- the virulent way in which he hates himself for hating Peggy because she has no _right_ \- but she has _every_ right. It's Bucky who's the one without a claim to stake.

"I might even, when this is all over... go dancing." Says Peggy, a small but dazzling smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. Bucky might as well just throw his hands up and march back to Austria.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Steve asks, and a memory comes crashing back, tidal-wave strong into Bucky's mind-

 _"Steve, was that your first kiss?"_

 _"Yuh-huh. And this'll be my second."_

-the same tone of voice, except Steve was never all that good at talkin' to girls. That's the voice he uses when he wants someone and wants them _now_ , and until now, Bucky's been the only one to be on the receiving end of it, and what kind of stupid has he been to think that no one _else_ would ever hear it too? His only consolation is that the intensity of it is reigned in, Because Steve's not drunk, and he hasn't kissed Peggy yet. Bucky knows what happens, though, once you've kissed Steve once- it's not something you ever want to stop doing.

"The right partner."

Bucky figures that this is the punch-line of an inside joke between the two of them, and the jealousy-followed-by-guilt washes over him anew because _Steve isn't supposed to have inside jokes with anyone else_.

Peggy says it and looks up at Steve through her long dark lashes, and there's more conversation but Bucky doesn't hear it. Peggy doesn't look at Bucky once (he can't blame her) before she glides out of the room, skirt swaying like she's a living walking summer breeze. He barely had it in him to look at Steve's face, but thinks that maybe if he sees that smitten look enough times, he'll get used to it. How many times it'll take until then, he doesn't know.

"I'm invisible. I'm turning into you. It's a horrible dream." This comment is off-the-cuff and meant to test the waters- Steve's reaction will determine how many more drinks Bucky is gonna need to deal with this, and how many of said drinks he'll have in this bar before he has to go find a nice quiet place to puke his guts out.

"Don't take it so hard," Steve grins like he's been waiting his whole life for this moment, "maybe she's got a friend."

Bucky would walk out right here and now, but he knows Steve would follow. So he waits just long enough for Dugan to start asking Steve about the super-soldier process, and everyone is looking at Steve, and they already worship him ( _fucking_ _late to the party, all of you_ , Bucky thinks). He finishes his (sixth? seventh?) beer and slips away through the crowd, glancing back to make sure that Steve hasn't noticed. His luck- it's just like he thought. Steve is everyone else's now too.

London will always be strange to him- to be fair, he hasn't spent that much time here- but the ways in which it reminds him of New York make it seem like it could be easy to get lost in- it's a city that strings you along until you find yourself on a Street you don't know, thinking you were only two blocks away from home. Fortunately, the hotel they've been put up in is right around the corner from the bar (pub, as he's been told it's called) and Bucky is eager to find it, so he gets there with little difficulty. His room is on the third floor- right next to Steve's. The windows (there are two), look out over the cobblestone street, something right out of a fancy movie, right down to the wrought iron streetlamps and floral window boxes on the buildings across the road. Not a lot to see right now though- it's nearly one in the morning, and a storm's coming in. It's true what they say about the weather here. Almost constant rain. It rained a lot on the front, too.

The room itself is nice- nicer than Steve and Bucky's apartment back home. _Much_ nicer than the muddy back roads of continental Europe or the cold cages of-

Yeah. It's a nice room. Nice enough to sleep in, though Bucky can already tell that this is gonna be one of those toss and turn until dawn kind of nights.

Bucky pulls both his boots and socks off- his feet are instantly cold. He vaguely hopes the feeling will spread. To expedite the process, he strips to the waist, throwing the top half of his uniform over the back of a chair and flinging the windows wide open. A chill immediately takes up residence on his skin, and he breathes in the smell of London, worlds away from Brooklyn. He feels trapped. He falls heavily onto the springy mattress like he's a sack of potatoes- this bed is nothing like the one back home- it's too big and too empty. Too soft- it isn't lumpy, doesn't poke into his side like the other one. It doesn't smell like the places he's been sleeping since he shipped out. He rolls over onto his stomach, pulls a pillow over his head and closes his eyes.

He doesn't sleep. Instead, he counts off almost two hundred and forty ticks of the clock before giving up altogether. It eventually gets too hot under the pillow and he rolls back over, revelling in the sudden rush of fresh air that hits his face. It's begun to rain outside- he can no longer hear the clock to count off seconds until the sun rises. He cranes his neck to look at it, eyes adjusting in the dark with unnerving speed. _What did they do to him on that table?_

He sees the clock and groans. It's barely been five minutes since he laid down.

Steve doesn't even get a chance to knock. Bucky can hear his hesitant feet shifting on the creaky hallway floor. Bucky briefly considers jumping out the window to avoid this conversation, but thinks better of it- he's starting to like this mattress. He knows he can't just lie here and wait for Steve to go away either, so he gets up with a sigh and goes to the door.

When he opens it, Steve's fist is in the air, poised and ready to knock. It drops to his side as Steve's eyes widen in surprise.

"How did you know I was out here?"

"I could hear you. You're about as sneaky as you are good at picking fights." Bucky deadpans. "What are you doing here?"

"You left." Steve says this as if it's perfectly self-explanatory. It isn't. Things are only self-explanatory when all parties involved know the implied explanation. Bucky doesn't know it- he doesn't see the way Steve's eyes rake over his body.

"Yeah. Of my own free will, I promise."

" _Why_?"

 _I hate her, and I can't stand myself for it._

 _None of those guys would have given you a second glance before._

 _You're too good for all of them- all of them- especially me._

 _I can't take this anymore._

 _I'm in love with you._

 _I'm so fuckin' in love with you._

"I was _tired_." Bucky sighs, the unspoken words silently clinging to the inside of his throat. "Turns out being captured and experimented on by Nazi scientists really takes it outta ya." He is quickly running out of sarcastic jabs and witty comebacks.

" _Bucky_." Steve's voice is bordering on condescending. It's like Bucky's a kid being scolded for having a filthy mouth. _Wash it out with soap_. There's no soap that can wash him clean of this.

" _Steve_." He means it to sound equally annoyed, but he has no energy for this. Steve's name comes out of his mouth already half way to a sob, with all the things he feels tacked onto the end like flaming coattails. He starts to close the door ( _to close Steve off for good?_ ). Whatever it takes for this to stop hurting.

" _Bucky_." Steve says again, this time with so much more concern, and shoulders harshly into the room, past Bucky's crumbled defences. Bucky falls against the door, resting his forehead against the cool wood and fighting the urge to kick something.

"I'm fine, Steve. don't worry about me. You go have fun." He doesn't turn around- doesn't think he can lie to Steve's face one more time.

"Is this what it was like, tryin' to get me to go out back in Brooklyn?" Bucky looks over just in time to see Steve shaking his head in sudden understanding. "It's no fun without _you_ , Buck."

Steve's bottom lip quivers slightly, and Bucky feels like he's been hit by a train, because shit, he's just remembering all over again that he _knows_ what Steve's mouth feels like. _I've kissed him, I have, I've_ \- after all this time trying not to think about it, he sometimes forgets.

"Maybe back in Brooklyn." Bucky leans away from the door, floating on his feet and light in the head. He falls back against it with a hollow _thunk_ when his shoulders make contact- shoves his hands in his pocket and feels the seven beers and memories buzzing through his brain, stinging like bees and humming like a love song.

"But you know, dames back in Brooklyn didn't know you existed." He can't believe he's actually telling Steve this. He'll chalk it up to bad decision making influenced by alcohol and the burden unrequited love.

Steve scoffs.

" _Peggy_? _That's_ what this is about?" Steve looks as disgusted with Bucky as Bucky feels about himself.

"You're _jealous_?"

Something flickers across Steve's face, something like a dying flame, something like the hope the flares in Bucky's chest when he sees it take hold of Steve's eyes.

"You're damn right I am." He says, standing up straight and preparing to face whatever comes.

"But I sure as hell ain't jealous of _you_."

'Whatever comes' is Steve barely waiting for Bucky to finish the sentence before he surges forward, their mouths and bodies colliding, sending them both reeling (mentally and physically) back towards the wall. Bucky barely has time to notice that his own sudden gasp is the first real breath he's taken in years, or that his pulse is wild against the palm of Steve's hand where it cups his jaw. He feels the metal buttons of Steve's uniform sliding ice-cold against his bare skin, and he shivers, and it jars him back to reality, because _this can't be it_. He knows this can't be it. He tears himself away from the kiss, and that's what it is- it's like tearing himself out of his skin.

"Steve-"

"How long?" Steve demands, his face so close that Bucky almost goes cross-eyed trying to look at him. "How long have you-"

"Summer of thirty-four. Hottest summer we ever had. We put the-"

"-couch cushions on the floor." Steve finishes, reminding Bucky that they're still connected hip to chest, and it's getting hard to think, let alone speak-

"It was the first time you slept next to me." The words are pouring out of him now, the levee having long since broken. "I woke up before you did, and when I looked at your face, that's when I knew." He shakes his head. "It was longer than that- it's always been like this, but that was when I knew."

"Why didn't you say something?" Steve looks extra pissed off from this distance (or lack thereof), but Bucky can feel the need pouring off of him, drowning out the wasted years of denial.

"I couldn't let myself hope you would ever think of me that way. I mean, _Jesus_ , Steve. At best, I thought you would've called me a fairy and socked me in the jaw and walked out of my life for good. What was I supposed to do?"

"You didn't think- not even when we-"

"It didn't count. You were _drunk_."

" 'm not drunk now." Steve's back to using his come hither voice, and Bucky is so weak at the knees for everything about it. He presses his palm flat over Steve's chest, feels that new heart beating lividly- and pushes Steve a little farther away than he really wants him.

"No, but you _are_ Captain America." Like that's worse than getting drunk and kissing your best friend. "And Captain America can't do this- he can't be queer."

"Can he be in _love_?" Steve's hands touch the wall on either side of Bucky's head, arms caging Bucky in, their bodies almost touching again. Bucky's theory holds true- almost is so much _worse_.

"In _love_?" He mulls the words over slowly- the taste is strange but sweet- and familiar word in a foreign language. But boy is it a language that he wants to learn.

"Bucky, a few days ago they said you were as good as dead if you weren't dead already. And that alone woulda killed me, if I had 've bought it for a second. But I just kept telling myself that it wasn't true, that I would've _known_ if you were really gone. The moon would've fallen out of the sky, the Ocean would've dried up- _something_. I'd 've _felt_ it. Going into that base to find you- I was ready to _die_ if I was wrong about that feeling."

Steve leans in until his forehead touches Bucky's; until their breaths mingle, until Bucky can find it in himself to meet the raw, honest blue of Steve's eyes.

"And you ask me if I'm in love." Steve laughs, elated. "Yeah, Buck. I'm in love. So stop tryin' to talk me out of it, _jerk_."

Bucky kisses Steve again, soft and deep and slow, like their first kiss should have been. But then, 'should have been' no longer matters, because the _now_ is Steve in love with him like he is with Steve. The missing piece. The strongest link in the chain.

He presses his mouth to the space beneath Steve's ear and _laughs_.

"As if I could ever talk you out of anything, _punk_."


End file.
